Metro’s trouble calculating its fare goes back years

Due to calculation errors, Metro doled out SmarTrip credits to any customers who were overcharged more than $2 between 2015 and 2017. The Washington Post discovered, however, that Metro officials knew about the fare errors back in 2012 but did not act to correct the problem until last year.

The agency found that hundreds of thousands of riders were charged the wrong fare, some paying too much and some paying too little. The majority of fares were off by 5 to 10 cents. Metro’s fares are based on distance measurements.

“The only thing I can do as chairman of the board on behalf of Metro is just apologize to everybody,” Jack Evans, chairman of the Metro board, told the paper. “We have no way of notifying or identifying everybody who was overcharged.”

Read the whole Metro fare saga here.

• Metro knew it was overcharging riders for years before issuing refunds — and not everyone got them [WaPo]
• Metro considers refunding riders for delayed trips [Curbed DC]